Andrew, I went out with Gary (Poisson du Jour) and Shane (SM Booth), who are both members here, to Yannathan Falls in the Otways about a month back. I had the camera in the backpack and put it down on what I thought was a fairly flat rock which was covered in slime. Unfortunately the slime was very slippery (doh) and the bag fell about 30 cms, but on an angle. The shaft for the front focus broke inside the base with the locking knob on the left side still attached. I was going to get a new part from Japan, but after speaking to my partner's brother (he teaches metal work at Canberra Institute of TAFE) I decided to pull the thing apart and give him the shaft and the locking knob. He is going to insert a smaller square shaft into the boken bits and rejoin them, and then I should be good to go. I have an awful lot of tiny little screws to put back though.
Hopefully I'll get it right and I'll be able to use it when I go to Alice Springs in December.
Mike